


Escape Velocity in B(utterfly) Major

by sassycatpants



Series: Project Timeloop [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 14:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11671137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassycatpants/pseuds/sassycatpants
Summary: Somewhere after death, a butterfly flaps its wings and escape velocity is achieved.(He'd destroyed everything once, self destructed in a desperate bid tomatter. Handed a second chance smothered in the bitter taste of failure, all he can do now is pick up the pieces of everything he'd broken and try to forge something new.Unfortunately, Tarn's talents had never been in creation. Organization, however...)





	Escape Velocity in B(utterfly) Major

**Author's Note:**

> Me, posting a Skids/tarn drabble: I'm probably not gonna write this time travel au sequel because that is Work.  
> Also me: hey yeah so I started writing that time travel au sequel.
> 
> I'm terrible and I hate myself

Tarn is thrown into awareness abruptly, the world materializing around him into something he recognizes.

Grindcore.

He knows this moment in time, remembers it vividly and isn't disappointed when the slightest movement of his head reveals Skids beside him.

Without thinking, words he never forgot fall out of his mouth, and Tarn can only hope that if this is _his_ Skids, that he plays along. They can't change this event from their past, it's already gone too far for that before they'd even found themselves back here again. But they can alter what comes next, _if_ Skids doesn't give them away.

He doesn't, and relief is a strange feeling. Tarn lets history repeat itself because there are no other choices left to him at this moment in time; all too soon the moment ends, and new paths branch out from the old.

“Leave,” he commands. The order, one he’d never given in the old timeline, is obeyed immediately. Leaving himself and Skids alone in the control room, with Skids staring silently at the screen where his friend had been melted down. The Decepticon -- _former_ Decepticon? He’s not sure anymore -- reaches out, and the gentle touch of claws is all it takes to send Skids into an incoherent pile at Tarn’s feet. The tank crouches, gathering the superlearner up into his arms, and takes his seat again, Skids in his lap.

He’s not… entirely sure what he’s supposed to do next, but Skids seems to appreciate the awkward attempt at comfort regardless based on the way he clings.

“We have to get you out,” Tarn says finally, voice low. “Do you remember how you escaped before?”

“I rolled to seduce the Warden,” Skids replies, clearly holding himself together on will alone. If not for the waver to his voice, Tarn probably wouldn’t have any idea he was falling apart; it’s almost impressive. He snorts, dipping the tips of his claws into the grooves of Skids’ wheels in an attempt to ground him in the past-present. “No, but in all seriousness -- I don’t remember. Not really -- I repressed everything about Grindcore the first time and I don’t think I recovered all of the memory before I died.”

“Alright. Then we’ll simply have to find a new way out.” He glances down at the superlearner in his lap, a wry twist to his mouth under the mask. “Would you like to seduce the Warden, Skids?”

The only response is a choked off laugh, as Skids finally shatters for real. Skids’ EM field is a maelstrom of emotion -- _grief_ , _anger_ , and _accusation_ tinged with _regret_ and undercurrents of _forgiveness_ and _relief_ the most prominent, lashing out against his own field and Tarn sits through it silently, steady as a metrotitan in a thunderstorm, waiting.

Eventually it’s over, leaving Skids exhausted and broken. But he needs Skids, if he’s ever going to fix all the things he’s broken.

_(Needs him for more than just fixing things, this time -- it’s Skids, it’s **always been** Skids and he’d hated that fact **so much** before but now he’s tired and just wants --_

_he wants claws and one optic and all those things he’d let slip away in search of things he’d already had, again.)_

So Tarn carries him to his cell personally, and sets himself to mending the first thing he’d ever destroyed.

* * *

It takes Skids less than four days after he’s finally uninjured to escape and Tarn can’t decide if he’s disappointed in Grindcore’s lax security, or pleased at Skids’ ingenuity. He settles for a disgruntled mix of both, and turns to the officer who’d brought the report of the escape.

“I will retrieve him myself,” he says finally, expression a careful study in impressed annoyance. “I expect the security hole to be dealt with by the time I return.”

Orders given, such as they are, Tarn follows the path of Skids’ desperate flight from the camp. Skids is waiting for him, as expected.

And just as they planned, neither return.


End file.
